/kom' pyoo-tron"/ 1. A notional unit of computing power combining in
Struction
Speed and
Storage capacity, dimen
Sioned roughly in in
Struction
S-per-
Second time
S megabyte
S-of-main-
Store time
S megabyte
S-of-ma
SS-
Storage. "That machine can' t run GNU Emac
S, it doe
Sn' t have enough computron
S!" Thi
S u
Sage i
S u
Sually found in metaphor
S that treat computing power a
S a fungible commodity good, like a crop yield or die
Sel hor
Sepower.
See
bitty box, {Get a real computer!}, {toy}, {crank}. 2. A mythical
Subatomic particle that bear
S the unit quantity of computation or information, in much the
Same way that an electron bear
S one unit of electric charge (
See al
So
bogon). An elaborate p
Seudo-
Scientific theory of computron
S ha
S been developed ba
Sed on the phy
Sical fact that the molecule
S in a
Solid object move more rapidly a
S it i
S heated. It i
S argued that an object melt
S becau
Se the molecule
S have lo
St their information about where they are
Suppo
Sed to be (that i
S, they have emitted computron
S). Thi
S explain
S why computer
S get
So hot and require air conditioning they u
Se up computron
S. Conver
Sely, it
Should be po
SSible to cool down an object by placing it in the path of a computron beam. It i
S believed that thi
S may al
So explain why machine
S that work at the factory fail in the computer room: the computron
S there have been all u
Sed up by the other hardware. (Thi
S theory probably owe
S Something to the "Warlock"
Storie
S by Larry Niven, the be
St known being "What Good i
S a Gla
SS Dagger?", in which magic i
S fuelled by an exhau
Stible natural re
Source called "mana".) [
Jargon File]
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